Pet scams have been around for a long time now

Pet scams have been around for a long time now, but sadly people do get scammed from time to time. The Lost Pet Scam is a particularly cruel scam which plays on the hopes of distressed and emotional owners of lost pets.

The way it works is the scammer replies to lost pet ads through websites, newspapers, posters, social media etc claiming to have found the pet - when they have not at all. They tell an unlikely story how the pet was found far away or transported to almost the opposite end of NZ. A common version is the scammer pretends to be a truck driver who found the pet, put it in their truck and drove hundreds of kilometers away.

The scammer then demands money to pay for the pet to be shipped back with payment through irreversible and untraceable methods like Western Union or Moneygram. I’ve even heard of NZ based scammers asking for payment in Prezzie cards and top up or gift cards. In the Prezzie card case the scammer was using the cards to credit her TAB account, funding her gambling addiction. The top up cards are presumably on sold for cash at lower rates than the face value. This scam was picked up by a vigilant supermarket checkout operator who kindly questioned an elderly person trying to buy hundreds of dollars of music top up cards which stood out as being odd.

Scammers may pretend to be deaf as a bluff to limit communication to written communication like email or Messenger etc so they can disguise their true location.

The cruelest part of this scam is that they don’t have your pet at all, they just want your money.

There are times that pets are genuinely found quite far away. I know of several cases like that such as the Burmese that went from Auckland and was found up a tree in Thames, or the Birman that went from Auckland to Tauranga. They both snuck into cars or trailers and ended up going on a very long, unplanned ride. The difference in these genuine cases was that the owner was quickly identified by the microchip or ID tag and friendly arrangements were made to reunite the pet with no money changing hands

Despite these fairly rare lost pet scams, don’t be afraid to put your contact details on your lost pet advertising. People need to know how to contact you easily if they do find or see your lost pet. Just be aware of scams if they ask for payment.